Delhi High Court: In the present case, the common grievance by the petitioners in the batch of petitions was that since their result for Senior Secondary School had not yet been declared by National Institute of Open Schooling (‘NIOS’), they were not being allowed to participate in the counselling process by Joint Admission Council (‘JAC’). However, no such embargo was imposed by Joint Seat Allocation Authority (‘JoSAA’).
A Single Judge Bench of Vikas Mahajan, J., directed NIOS to expedite the declaration of result of Class-12, preferably on or before 17-6-2025, so that at least two days buffer was available to the petitioners and other similarly situated students/candidates, for registration of counselling with JAC. The Court stated that the JAC should permit the petitioners to register themselves for counselling physically on 2-6-2025, with a condition that seat allotment will be made by JAC to the petitioners only if they were able to furnish the result of class 12 before the declaration of seat allotment result of First Round.
Background
The petitioners in the present petitions were the students who had successfully cleared JEE (Mains)-2025 conducted by respondent/National Testing Agency (‘NTA’) and have secured the category wise All-India Ranks and percentiles. The petitioners in their respective petitions stated that they got registered with NIOS appeared for the Senior Secondary School Examination (Class-12) Examination which commenced from 22-4-2025 and ended on 7-5-2025.
The result of petitioners’ Class-12 Examination WAS awaited. The petitioners having secured qualifying percentile in the JEE (Mains) were entitled to participate in the counselling which was to be conducted by the JoSAA and JAC.
The common grievance articulated by the petitioners was that since their result for Senior Secondary School Examination undertaken by them in the month of April-May 2025 had not yet been declared by NIOS, they were not being allowed to participate in the counselling process by JAC. However, no such embargo was imposed by JoSAA.
The petitioners submitted that despite petitioners qualifying JEE (Mains)-2025, they were being severely prejudiced solely due to delay in the declaration of Class-XII results by NIOS which served as an eligibility criterion for candidates to register/participate in the counselling process of JAC. They submitted that not permitting the petitioners to participate in the counselling for no fault of theirs would severely prejudice them as it would lead to waste of their complete academic year. The petitioners had no control on the declaration of result. If the petitioners were allowed to participate in the counselling process, no prejudice will be caused to the respondents/other candidates so long as it was clarified that their participation in the counselling process would not create any special equities in their favour.
Analysis, Law, and Decision
The Court stated that it was true that the students had no control over the declaration of result by the Board conducting class 12 examination nor they were in any way responsible for the delay in declaration of result. However, at the same time it could not be overlooked that operational difficulties might occur if at this belated stage few students were allowed to participate in the counselling without having class 12 result, since different qualifying percentage in aggregate in class 12, besides qualifying percentage in some of the subjects has been prescribed by different participating Universities/Institutes for different set of programs.
The Court stated that an important aspect which could not be overlooked was that students put hard labour for two to four years, or may be more, while preparing for JEE (Mains) and they should not get ousted from consideration in the counselling despite having attained good percentile only on the ground that result of class 12 had not been timely declared by the education Board concerned. Therefore, the Court stated that it needs to be underlined that there had to be proper coordination between the counselling bodies and all the Boards at the national and state level, conducting class 12 exams. In any case, the counselling body could consider factoring in the aspect of delay in declaration of result as has been done by JoSSA, if informed by the Board(s) well in time.
Since the last date for registration was 2-6-2025, the Court stated that issuing any direction to the respondents to make changes in portal to enable the petitioners to register for the online counselling might not be feasible. However, taking into consideration the interest of the petitioners and the operational difficulties articulated on behalf of JAC, this Court issued certain interim directions.
The Court directed NIOS to expedite the declaration of result of Class-12, preferably on or before 17-6-2025, so that at least two days buffer was available to the petitioners and other similarly situated students/candidates, for registration of counselling with JAC. The Court stated that the JAC should permit the petitioners to register themselves for counselling physically on 2-6-2025, with a condition that seat allotment will be made by JAC to the petitioners only if they were able to furnish the result of class 12 before the declaration of seat allotment result of First Round.
The Court stated that in case, class 12 result was not declared by NIOS before the opening of single day window on 19-6-2025, the JAC should then again permit the petitioners to register themselves on a single day window available on 19-6-2025 without insisting upon the class-12 result, with a condition that seat allotment would be made only if they were able to furnish the result before the declaration of seat allotment result of second round.
The Court also directed the JAC to notify other candidates similarly placed as petitioners about this order and allow them to register themselves for the counselling on a single day window available on 19-6-2025 and extend them the same benefit.
The matter is next listed on 7-7-2025.
[Deepak Kumar v. Delhi Technical University, 2025 SCC OnLine Del 3869, decided on 30-5-2025]
Advocates who appeared in this case:
For the Petitioner: Gaurav Deshraj and Naveen Kumar, Advocates; Ankit Singh Sinsinwar, Ravi Kumar, Dhananjay Kumar and Neha Yadav, Advocates; Samar K., Anmol Agarwal, P. Sharma, Kushal Gupta, Abhishek Singh, Kavita Vinayak and Gaurav Vashisht, Advocates.
For the Respondents: S. Rajappa R Gowrishankar and G. Dhivyasri, Advocates; Pankhuri Shrivastava and Aditya Kumar, Advocates; Avnish Ahlawat, SC for DTU with NK Singh, Aliza Alam, Mohnish and Amitoj, Advocates; Arjun Mitra, Advocate; Soumava Karmakar and Jyoti Bajaj, Advocate.
